To say that I've taken a hiatus on blogging is a bit of an understatement. I've had ideas for posts but never got around to writing them. Something about blogging wasn't satisfying to me anymore, but I'm ready to get back into it, with a new agenda. I've deleted many of my posts, about 28 of them, which I refer to as "fluff" posts. No longer will I write about random funny things that happened to me or boys, or whatnot. I'm going to start writing about things that really matter to me, current events, lessons learned and, of course, new age feminism. I hope you'll still enjoy, even if you don't always agree with me.
So, for my first back-to-blogging agenda I want to talk about about the mosque at Ground Zero (could I have picked a more controversial topic?). Before I go into that, I want to discuss where I was nine years ago yesterday.
Tuesday, September 11th 2001 was my first full week as a freshman in high school. I was new to the public school system and still did not know many people. While in my Spanish class, we heard the announcement over the loud speaker that one of the twin towers was just hit by an airplane. We all thought it was some kind of freak accident. My teacher, who was actually in the marines before becoming a teacher, immediately turned the radio on for news. It was then that we listened as a second airplane crashed the second tower and heard of both towers collapsing to the ground. It was then that we knew it wasn't an accident. It was then that we realized nothing was going to be the same ever again.
We live in a town where many parents commute every morning to work in the World Trade Center. As a result, kids were in hysterics, frantically trying to get in touch with their parents. With cell phone service down, this was practically impossible, leading many to fear the worst that the last time they saw their parents was really the last time they will ever see them. It was chaotic as students were crying in the corridors trying to comfort each other. The news was featured on television screens in the cafeteria and auditorium, where we saw nothing but replays of the towers getting hit and collapsing and the heart-wrenching scene of many jumping out office windows. We were so confused and scared and lost and sad and had so many questions that needed answering: "Are my parents safe?", "Who did this?", "Why did they do it?", "Is there more to come?". Some of the answers we learned within the next few days, but others, especially the last, still causes many of us to worry everyday.
We lost a lot of parents in my town that day. The father of a girl I went to elementary school with, who didn't even normally work in the towers but was there that day giving a lecture, emailed his wife saying, "The towers have just been hit and the building is on fire. I'm going to jump out the window. If I don't make it, know that I love you and the girls more than anything." We also heard lots of stories of incredible luck. My next door neighbor, for example, decided that morning that he wasn't really feeling up to going to work that day. Another friend's dad was running late, for the first time ever in his life. They and their families look remember this anniversary and thank God that they were spared by seemingly trivial circumstances at the time.
That day, we also saw the real courage and devotion of our nation's heroes: firemen, policemen, doctors, and neighbors. People who ran towards the catastrophe selflessly, putting themselves in danger for the benefit of others. There was a story about a 26-yr old man who found himself safe, but then ran up 60 flights of stairs in one of the towers to find his father. Every time I think of these people, I still get emotional and hope that if I were ever put to that type of test, that I could react as bravely.
In the aftermath, American merchandising went into full effect. American flags and images of the towers were everywhere: cars, windows, posters with the phrase "United We Stand". Neighbors continued to help each other out selflessly and it seemed we were going to become stronger with this new sense of camaraderie. However, on the flip side, we also heard stories of racial profiling, distrust and violence. A man in the South went into a gas station and then was tied to the bumper of a car and dragged along the highway until he died all because he was wearing a turban. It turned out that he was a Sikh, not a Muslim, not that it would have been acceptable behavior anyway, but if he had been Muslim it probably wouldn't have been discussed in the news as such a "horrifying" incident.
To this day, distrust still lingers towards Arabs. My friend Amreen tells me how every time she flies back from her Teach for America position in the Mississippi delta to home in New York during a break, she has to arrive at the airport earlier because she is always checked extra cautiously. They even pat down her head to make sure she has nothing hiding under her hijab. To me, this is just a few short steps away from the Japanese Internment Camps during WWII. Some might feel safer knowing these "extra precautions" are made for people who are "visibly Muslim", but I feel sorry for it. I wish that having a certain skin color or outfit didn't automatically make one a target of suspicion.
Now, I'll finally start talking about the Mosque at Ground Zero. Or what it really is, the Interdenominational Faith and Recreation Center. I understand that many consider it "insensitive" to promote or allow Muslims to pray to their God on the ground where 2,819 innocent civilians were killed by, coincidentally, other Muslims. But, what I also understand is that this is not just a mosque. This is a center for people of all faiths to come together. What I also understand is that Muslims have the same God as Christians and Jews. Yes, we follow different prophets (Mohammed, Jesus, Moses), but the actual God and majority of our Holy Scriptures is more or less the same. The three religions follow the same ideals: Accept God, pray, give to the poor, treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated, etc. These fundamentals are found in other religions and practices as well, including Hinduism and Buddhism. We all believe that while on our short stay on Earth that we should be good to it, and good to each other. Now, those who hijacked the airplanes that crashed into the towers and Pentagon obviously weren't following these fundamental practices. But, they were extremists. They were brainwashed from the time they were children that the U.S. was their enemy. I don't know what good they believed would happen for the Muslim world once they completed their "mission", but they probably were in so far deep that they couldn't even think for themselves.
It is not fair that one religion is excluded from this memorial. This will only lead to more division, distrust and disdain. In today's world, which seems so much smaller than before as a result of technology and travel, we can't afford to shut people out. If we allow ourselves to love individuals before hating groups we will finally allow ourselves to heal.
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